“One of the great challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you’re right but not enough about the subject to know you’re wrong.”
Classic self-annihilating relativism from Neil deGrasse Tyson at the start of an ad for his masterclass that I’ve seen umpteen times on YouTube including specifically on January 24, 2025 on one of our own CDN videos.
In my latest National Post column I say the routinely grandiose rhetoric emanating from Prime Minister Mark Carney is a warning sign about the routinely grandiose way he thinks.
“Montcalm had brought artillery, and within six days had partly smashed the fort [“Fort William Henry, on Lake George” in August 1757], which, after a respectable fight, surrendered. Montcalm allowed the British to retire, leaving an officer behind as a prisoner for security, and with a guaranty not to return to the area for 18 months. Montcalm took all the stores in artillery and arms, and promised to return the wounded as they recovered the ability to travel. This did not conform to the Indian notion of how to treat defeated enemies, especially the notion of it they entertained after getting well into the spirit issue, both authorized and looted. The Indians chased after the retreating British, killing 200 and capturing 500. Montcalm personally led the parties of retribution to compel the Indians to honor his promises, and he got back all but about 200 prisoners, who were killed or dragged off by the Indians, including the boiling and eating of an English soldier in a public ceremony near Montreal.”
Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present [file it under “vibrant”]
In my latest Epoch Times column I suggest in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination that we all ask ourselves whether our own interventions in public debate are designed to lead people back to the light or drive them further into the darkness.
“Nigel Farage stood up in the House of Commons yesterday to ask how many British troops will be promised to Ukraine. A reasonable question. He was dismissed as being a ‘Putin apologist’ by both Conservatives and Labour. The uniparty are still two cheeks of the same ugly old arse.”
A post on X from someone I am not familiar with on March 4, 2025 [https://x.com/darrengrimes_/status/1896864773389869349] and yes, it bends my rule about vulgarity in public discourse but it’s funny and apposite enough to deserve it.
“The initial Canadian Expeditionary force of twenty thousand [in World War I] was organized by Sam Hughes, who was, as Borden informed him, ‘beset by two unceasing enemies. Expecting a revelation, he was intensely disappointed when I told him that they were his tongue and his pen.’”
Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present
“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong. You are the CEO of your life. Hire, fire & promote accordingly.”
Emailed without attribution by a friend
“The burden of existence calls for a commensurate justification of our being. The fact that we are alive, that we have agency, that we are capable of such tremendous heights and depths emotionally, that our minds have such a capacity for love and creation and reason, that our subjective experiences appear to have irreducible meaning and value despite the fact that they are subjective – all of these things burden us. The beauty and goodness of our particular being demands some justification: What right do I have to such a life? Without a justification, we feel like phonies, frauds, failures, or, at best, lost.”
Alan Noble Disruptive Witness